Preaching is the activity Jesus directed his disciples to do and nothing interferes with this work. In times of disaster Jehovah's Witnesses offer immediate aid to their brothers, and any others who need help, JW or not. The reports are not all in on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, please read this partial report after Florida's Hurricane Andrew 3 years ago:
...trees were uprooted, sheets of mangled aluminum, formerly the walls and roofs of homes, were wrapped around trees...power lines were down everywhere, the wooden poles snapped like matchsticks. Cars were overturned and smashed. Hurricane Andrew spared nothing. Shopping malls, factories, warehouses—all became the target of nature’s onslaught. The Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Brooklyn, New York, reacted at once and appointed a relief committee to function out of the Fort Lauderdale Assembly Hall. They also assigned a considerable sum of money for the purchase of materials, food, and emergency items. As a consequence, the Witnesses were among the first to react to the situation and began calling for volunteers. In fact, many came without being called.
Witness workers turned up from California, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington State, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and many other places. A Virginia Regional Building Committee that usually builds Kingdom Halls sent a group of 18 Witnesses to repair roofs. It took them 18 hours to drive down. Relief workers took vacation time or leaves of absence and drove across the country, hundreds and even thousands of miles, to reach their fellow Witnesses in distress.
Of invaluable aid was the group that came from the Charleston area in South Carolina. They had had experience with Hurricane Hugo back in 1989. They knew what to expect and soon organized relief supplies, including electric generators and building materials. Within two weeks volunteer crews had dried out some 800 homes and had repaired many roofs. Neighbors of witnesses benefited from the rebuilding efforts by teams of Witness repairmen. Ron Clarke from West Homestead reported: "Non-witnesses were overwhelmed at the help received. One man was ecstatic as Witnesses put a new roof on his house."
Another Witness related that he checked on the neighbors each night. They said they were OK. On the fifth day, the wife broke down and wept. "We don’t have any diapers for the baby. We’re low on baby food. We don’t have enough food and water." The husband needed gasoline but could not get it anywhere, so the Witness brought everything they needed from the Kingdom Hall relief depot to them.
Disasters can bring out the best and the worst in people. An example of the latter was the looting. One family of Witnesses decided they could at least save their refrigerator and the washing machine for use at the relief center at the local Kingdom Hall. They went to the hall to get a truck. Before they got back, looters had stolen both items!
An eyewitness reported: "As we traveled through the desolated streets, we saw homes with signs warning looters to keep away. Some of the signs said, ‘Looters Must Die’ and, ‘Looters Will Be Shot.’ Another said, ‘Two looters shot. One dead.’ Stores and malls had been plundered." According to a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division, at least one looter had been caught and lynched by the people. Many arrests were made. It seems that in any disaster the criminal element is ready to swoop down like vultures. And even so-called ordinary people get swept up in looting. Religion, ethics, and morals seem to evaporate under the temptation of something for nothing. Awake! was told that in the beginning a few soldiers even had their unloaded rifles stolen from them by armed looters. Some soldiers were heard to say that they viewed the Kingdom Hall relief center as an oasis in the desert "because," as they said, "you people don’t carry guns."
Fermín Pastrana, an elder from the Princeton Spanish Congregation, reported that seven families in his congregation of 80 Witnesses had lost their homes entirely. What remedy had he suggested to his fellow Witnesses? "Grieve if you need to grieve. But then don’t sit around and mope. Get active helping others, and, to the degree possible, go out in the ministry. Don’t miss our Christian meetings. Solve what can be solved, but don’t fret about what has no solution."
Newspapers reported on the Witnesses organization. The Savannah Evening Press carried the headline "Jehovah’s Witnesses Find They Are Welcome in South Florida," and The Miami Herald declared: "Witnesses Care for Their Own—and Others." It stated: "No one in Homestead is slamming doors on the Jehovah’s Witnesses this week—even if they still have doors to slam. About 3,000 Witness volunteers from across the country have converged on the disaster area, first to help their own, then to help others. . . . Any military organization might envy the Witnesses’ precision, discipline and efficiency."
The same report continued: "There’s no bureaucracy. There are no battling egos. Instead, workers seem impossibly cheerful and cooperative no matter how hot, grimy or exhausted." How was that explained? One Witness answered: "This comes from a relationship with God that motivates us to demonstrate our love for others." That was something else that Andrew could not take away, the Witnesses’ Christian love.—John 13:34, 35.
The Anheuser Busch company donated a truckload of drinking water. On arriving, the driver asked officials where he should deliver the water. He was told that the only ones who had something organized were the Witnesses. In fact, within a week after Andrew struck, some 70 tractor-trailer loads of supplies had arrived at the Fort Lauderdale Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A volunteer there reports: "So we received a whole truckload of drinking water. We immediately included this among the other foodstuffs that we were sending to the distribution centers at the Kingdom Halls. It was shared with the brothers and with the neighbors in that area who were in need." A paper company in Washington State donated 250,000 paper plates. In the beginning, city authorities were sending non-Witness volunteers to the Kingdom Halls, saying, ‘They are the only ones who are properly organized.’ Eventually the military moved in and began to set up food and water relief centers and tent cities.
The original Witness staging area was set up by the relief committee at the Fort Lauderdale Assembly Hall, which is some 40 miles [60 km] north of the main disaster zone around Homestead. To relieve some of the pressure, a primary staging area was established at the Plant City Assembly Hall near Orlando, about 250 miles [400 km] northwest of the disaster zone. Most relief materials were channeled there for sorting and packing. The committee ordered its needs from Plant City on a daily basis, and huge tractor-trailers were used to cover the five-hour drive down to Fort Lauderdale.
In turn this staging station supplied food, materials, water, generators, and other needs to three Kingdom Halls that had been repaired in the center of the disaster area. There, capable Witnesses organized building and clean-up crews to visit the hundreds of homes that needed attention. Kitchens and feeding lines were also opened on the Kingdom Hall grounds, and anybody was welcome to come for aid. Even some of the soldiers enjoyed a meal and were later observed dropping donations into the contribution boxes.
While the men were busy fixing houses, some of the women were preparing meals. Others were out visiting any people they could find in order to share with them the Bible’s explanation of natural disasters and also to give away boxes of relief supplies to those in need. One of these was Teresa Pereda. Her home was damaged, and her car windows were smashed—yet the car was loaded with relief boxes ready for her neighbors. Her husband, Lazaro, was busy working at one of the Kingdom Halls.—Ecclesiastes 9:11; Luke 21:11, 25.
For many of the homeless, alternative accommodations were found in the homes of Witnesses untouched by Andrew. Others stayed in trailers lent or donated for that purpose. Some moved into the tent cities established by the military. Others just wrote off their homes as a loss and moved in with friends and relatives in other parts of the country. They had neither homes nor jobs. There was no electricity, no water, no adequate sewerage—so they took the best way out for them.
One lesson all learned was well expressed by a Spanish-speaking Witness: "We are very thankful for the lesson that we learned about our goals in life. You know, you can work for 15 or 20 years building up your home, accumulating material things, and then in just one hour, it can all be gone. This helps us to identify our goals spiritually, to make life simpler and really think about serving Jehovah."
It is much as the apostle Paul stated: "What things were gains to me, these I have considered loss on account of the Christ. Why, for that matter, I do indeed also consider all things to be loss on account of the excelling value of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. On account of him I have taken the loss of all things and I consider them as a lot of refuse, that I may gain Christ."—Philippians 3:7, 8.
Natural disasters are a part of life in our present world. If we heed warnings from the authorities, we may at least save our lives. Maybe homes and possessions will be lost, but a Christian’s relationship with "the God of all comfort" should be strengthened. Even if some may perish in a disaster, Jesus promised a resurrection for them in God’s new world on a restored earth—an earth that will never see misery and death caused by natural disasters.—2 Corinthians 1:3, 4; Isaiah 11:9; John 5:28, 29; Revelation 21:3, 4.